BandMate: Concert Tipster HD brings concert exploration to the iPad

Austin, Texas – WellAlright today is pleased to announce the release of BandMate: Concert Tipster HD 3.0, an iPad version of their popular concert recommendation and music discovery tool for the iPhone. BandMate makes it easy to find the live music events that matter most to an individual. By analyzing the music already on the user’s iPod, BandMate highlights upcoming concerts for both the bands a user already listens to along with other artists that the user would most likely be interested in. The HD version is optimized to take advantage of the iPad’s new look and feature set.

With this release, music fans now have access to all of BandMate’s tools in a great new interface. The iPad’s beautiful large canvas is fully exploited to bring all BandMate’s major features right to the surface. Higher resolution images accompany the artist’s biography along with song clips on the event information screen. Exploring the other artists in an event lineup is as simple as a single tap. And a new pop-up music player allows a user to quickly listen to the music they already own for an artist.

The recommendation engine has also been enhanced to allow easy customization. The artists that are used as the basis for a recommendation now appear as links on the event information screen. A user can now quickly open the detail screen for any of these artists to review music, videos, bio’s, etc. If a person decides they no longer want to use this artist as a basis for event recommendations, a simple menu option allows them to remove it.

The event listing screens have also been modified to take advantage of the additional space and new iPad features. The event calendar now includes larger images, full lineups, and lists the bands behind the recommendations. And a new jump-to popup provides a fast way to navigate to any day in the calendar.

About BandMate: With so many new bands playing on any given night, it’s difficult for concertgoers to pick out the show they’d like to see most, and often they find out too late about great shows they missed. BandMate evolved around the idea of connecting fans with the shows they’ll love.

Beyond simply alerting music fans to live shows by their favorite bands, BandMate analyzes the music they already listen to and discovers new bands that they would want to check out. It searches through event listings in the city of the user’s choice to create a personalized calendar of only the shows that they want to see. Each event even includes a probability score of how strong the recommendation is. BandMate also provides all the tools music fans need to find out more about artists, including links to schedules, videos, bios, music, along with easy ways to share any info with their friends via e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.

Feature Highlights: * Watch the band’s videos * Listen to the artist’s music * Read the band’s biography * Browse the artist’s web site * View multiple photos of each artist * Review the artists behind each recommendation * Purchase tickets * View videos, pictures, bios, etc. for all artists on your device, even if they don’t have any upcoming events * Share via email, Facebook, and Twitter * Track all the events at your favorite venues * Set a personal rating for each artist * Review the band’s tour schedule * Launch the band’s last.fm radio station * Explore the other artists in the event line-up * Keep track of and organize your favorite events * Export favorites to your calendar * Add artists not already on your iPod * Turn off artists you don’t want to include * Import artists from iTunes playlists * Get a map and directions to the venue * View all upcoming shows at a venue * Explore events in different cities

“I’m lucky enough to live in Austin, a fantastic city known for live music,” says Rimas Remeza, owner and CTO of WellAlright. “So many incredible bands play here every night. And if you look hard enough, there’s always some artist you’ll want to check out.” The tough part is, with so many shows, simply poring over the local event listings might help you find a couple bands you know, but it does little to help you find new bands that you may like. We definitely needed a better way for people to connect with new artists that they’d enjoy,” continues Remeza. “Being both a music fan and a geek, and seeing the possibility of combining both loves to do something that might help people enjoy their live music scene a bit more, I developed BandMate. Hopefully, it will lead to more folks discovering new music and more new fans out there supporting bands.”

Based in Austin, Texas, WellAlright is a small privately held company founded in 2009 by independent software developer Rimas Remeza. Committed to providing the most unique solutions, WellAlright was founded for the purpose of developing iPhone applications designed to to help people enjoy life. Copyright (C) 2009-2010 WellAlright. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.